Julien's Terror as a Psychological Thriller - Between Rationalism and Superstition

Julien's Terror features various facets of the psychological thriller listed by Mecholsky¹ including, apparent paranormal danger, a form of prolonged psychological torture, psychological trauma / memory losses and past traumas that revisit in the form of a new danger.

Julien, my main character, experiences a dread towards his wife, Marguerite which has as its origin: family trauma; the internalisation of a misogynistic mentality that would have been common in the 19th century; the internalisation of his own father's jealous paranoia towards Julien's mother; and finally the suppression of his own inner fears which rebound forcibly, manifesting into a terror. This is revealed during his final visit to fortune teller Marie Anne Lenormand, where Julien makes a powerful revelation about a crucial passage in his life.

The only person in the novel who appears fearless in the novel is Marguerite, adding to the aura of mystery and potency around her.

A young Marguerite Lafolye

Painting by Gustave Jean Jacquet (1846-1909)

For all his knowledge, engineering aptitude and cerebral prowess, Julien cannot decipher his own wife. Marguerite appears as an unknown entity. Mid-way into the novel, he considers her a liar, perhaps even a traitor. 

According to Mecholsky, this fear is key to the psychological thriller. He claims that this dread, that dangerous secrets lie beneath once-safe sectors of life is in fact an anxiety about the modern age and its implication. Despite living in an Age of Reason which had presumably enabled the French Revolution, despite having been rigorously schooled by the Ponts et Chausses, the Cartesian Julien is confronted with the limits of his knowledge. He knows nothing about Marguerite. Before him, is an unknowable being, one who reflects the unknowable mind in each and every one of us.

Aptly set in the French Revolution, Julien's Terror illustrates this modern dynamic that Mecholsky describes as having given birth to the psychological thriller - a modern anxiety (about the nature of the mind and the Self) existing through the Enlightenment struggle to subjugate myth and superstition by way of science and rationality. Marguerite is a Catholic royalist. Worse, she is of Breton descent. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Bretons were considered not only filthy by the French, but also savage and backwards. Meanwhile, their 'blind' adherence to religion was seen as evidence of their superstitious minds. Julien's domination and abuse of Marguerite is a metaphor for this symbolic subjugation of the rational over superstition and myth. 

As modern anxiety would have it, Julien does not fare better through his actions - his anxiety only accrues and the enigma of Marguerite appears all the more horrifying.  It is only when Julien takes Marie Anne Lenormand's advice and considers the supernatural as a potential explanation for what is happening - at the cost of his cherished logic, only when he concedes that there may be forces he knows nothing about, and then pragmatically undertakes to confront these occult forces, can he achieve a solution.

Marie Anne Lenormand reading

In its resolution, however, Julien's Terror presents two opposing explanations for the reader that can be listed here briefly to avoid spoilers. The first explanation is grounded in rationalism, informed by a conversation with the physician Franz Anton Mesmer. Mesmer proposes a valid psychological theory, albeit one that had not been fully developed at the time, and which was only starting to be known in limited scientific circles, due to the rising cases observed and reported. 

The second explanation is supernatural. It confirms Marguerite's innate belief that she can see and converse with the dead. It suggests that there is something real about the myths in Breton folklore - they are not mere superstition. This explanation also implies that Marguerite, by way of a certain unique and harrowing childhood experience, now finds herself between two worlds - she lies in-between - and as such, she can channel the dead.

Les Lavendieres de la Nuit - Breton Folklore painting by 

Jean Edouard Yan Dargent (1824-1899)

At the conclusion of the novel, Julien rationalises what he has seen, to himself. He is never truly convinced about one explanation over the other, but he now understands that there is something strong and worthy of esteem in Marguerite. He is also made aware of his own past failings - though that is not to say that he has overcome them (an important point, if one is to understand his last vision in the Temple prison). He comes to cherish, admire and love Marguerite all the more. An ending like this was necessary to reconcile the couple after much conflict and to achieve a satisfying character arc for Julien. 

Despite Julien's own reckoning, I don't want underplay the tone of uncertainty that the final chapter creates - this fine line between the rational and the paranormal interpretations is the hallmark of the psychological thriller. We are not meant to know for certain. Some anxiety remains. 

The horror that Julien's Terror illustrates is both a facet of the period during which it is set (the French Revolution/ the Terror / the Vendée wars) and the repercussions this period had on the French population. 

Mecholsky indicates that the French revolution was a logical cultural goal of the Enlightenment, yet it resulted in horrific terror and murder, casting a pall over rationalism. Julien embodies this contradiction perfectly. He is both the most logically-minded character and the character that undergoes the most destructive and potentially sociopathic psychosis. Incidentally this is the reason the novel is named Julien's Terror.

Just as it opposes rationalism to superstition, Julien's Terror also highlights the ever present conflict between those French who embraced the Republic and were loyal to its tenets, and those French who pined for the Ancien Regime and espoused the royalist cause. This opposition is embodied by Julien and his wife Marguerite.

Julien is an upcoming bourgeois who has thrived in the new Republican order and accepted the Napoleonic age. He considers Napoleon his benefactor and the benefactor of France. Marguerite is a staunch royalist with a great disdain for the 'Corsican upstart' who has come to rule post-revolutionary France.

When I conceived a marriage between two unlike souls, I was partly cautious about its probability. I decided, among other character motivations, to employ a 'marriage of convenience' disclaimer - Julien marries the first woman offered to him to avoid serving in Napoleon's army so that he can instead become the engineer he had always dreamed of becoming. With this mindset, he spends no time evaluating her personality, background or values. By way of this disclaimer, I hoped no one would question such an unmatched pair. Still, I wondered how likely an alliance of this nature could have been. Could a republican at soul marry a royalist? 

I had no idea that this unlikely combination was in fact common. So common, that it existed in none other than author Victor Hugo's family². The similarity struck me and I simply have to share it here.

Like Marguerite, Victor Hugo's mother was from Nantes. Like Marguerite, Sophie Hugo née Trébuchet, was from a royalist Breton family. And like Marguerite, Sophie did not share her husband's Napoleonic sentiments. Madame Hugo went so far as to shelter those who plotted against Napoleon's life. Meanwhile, Hugo's father, Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo distinguished himself as a soldier in Napoleon's army, rising to a high position, notably at the battle of Marengo in 1800, acquiring the Legion of Honour in 1804. He also fought against guerillas in Spain from 1808 to 1810 a period during which the young Victor Hugo became acquainted with the Spanish language and learned to love the country.

Sadly, and unlike Marguerite and Julien, the Hugo couple's differences could not be resolved.

A final word about Julien's Terror. Mecholsky explains that novels like the psychological thriller and its early Gothic form have helped us disguise sources of anxiety, throughout the history of western culture since the 18th century. Quoting Fiedler, Mecholsky alludes to one of the tensions that such novels help us deal with: "a fear that in destroying the old ego-ideals of Church and State, the West has opened a way for the inruption of darkness..." I think this is perfect.  You see, as a psychological thriller, Julien's Terror happens to be set during and soon after the French revolution, that is to say a period where the power of the Monarchy and Church were toppled, leading perhaps to much anxiety and guilt...   Here then, Julien's Terror provides a coping mechanism for a fear that has presumably surged during the very period in which the novel is set.

Sources:

1. Kristopher Mecholsky, The Psychological Thriller, http://www.academia.edu/17484925/The_Psychological_Thriller_An_Overview, Accessed on 12 June, 2017.

2. Albert.W. Halsall, Victor Hugo and the Romantic Drama, University of Toronto Press, 1998.

The Man in the Turkish Costume

Whenever I have felt disrespected or not listened to, despite my abilities and experience, I always think back to the wise Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and his anecdote from my favorite little book, The Little Prince. 

The narrator mentions that in 1909, some Turkish astronomer had once discovered an asteroid through his telescope. When he had tried to convince an International Astronomy Convention of the asteroid's existence, no one had believed him due to his Turkish costume.

Astronomer in a Turkish costume. 

The Little Prince

Thankfully, a Turkish dictator later imposed European dress onto his people.  The Turkish astronomer redid his presentation in 1920, dressed in an 'elegant' European costume and this time, everyone agreed with him.

This lightly humorous tale is not devoid of truth. Persuasion truly works this way. The social mechanisms at play underpin the whole gamut of human relations from the workplace to international diplomacy.

Appearance 

To begin, there is the appearance of the speaker. We tend to be more persuaded by those whose appearance match the culturally accepted image of their role.

Here, let's play a game.
When you think of a female engineer, what image comes to mind?
Think about it for a moment...

Oh, by the way, here's a female engineer. She was so brilliant that modern WiFi and Bluetooth depend heavily on her research.

Hedy Lamarr

I know of a few highly attractive female engineers but I will respect their privacy and not post photos here.

Needless to say, I can't think of a common 'look' that embodies some generally accepted 'image' of a female engineer. But apparently there is one. I suspect that an audience may not take a female engineer seriously unless she 'looks' the part. Whatever that is!

In our previous example, and from the point of view of the International Astronomy Convention - which likely might have been dominated by a European audience - the average generally accepted 'look' for a credible astronomer would have been: someone-who-doesn't-look-like-Ali-Baba. Sad but true.

Which brings me to credibility...

Credibility

Numerous factors influence credibility. An audience is constantly looking for signs that they can trust the veracity of their speaker's words and they will use whatever they can to ascertain that fact... Often the very signs they employ as proof of credibility are flimsy and scientifically unreliable.

One of the generally accepted hallmarks of credibility is how confidently a person speaks, how well they speak. That would be the difference between an introverted aloof person and an extrovert with years of Sales experience. Guess who sounds better?

Our Turkish astronomer probably had a heavy accent.

But I digress. Interestingly, studies have demonstrated that confidence and ability with speaking does not correlate with better outcomes in task performance.  In other words, good talkers and therefore, persuasive talkers, are not necessarily the best doers nor the most knowledgeable. I forgot which study that was but I remember smiling knowingly at it.

It goes without saying that credibility can be fabricated just as it can be destroyed. Don't believe me?

Credibility, these days, is the equivalent of buying 1 million likes on Facebook and appearing as though everyone in the planet wants to read your book or worship your art. Credibility is telling everyone what you did on a daily basis and ensuring they know you are indispensable, as opposed to working quietly and keeping much to yourself. Credibility is highlighting someone's faults, so that you appear more competent.
Seriously, credibility is a load of bull mainly because there are so many gullible people out there and I am one of them.  Some people are amazing at appearing credible. I am not one of those.

Ingroup / Outgroup

We come now to a crucial factor in persuasion: does the speaker come from the same background as their audience. Studies indicate that audiences are more likely persuaded by a speaker who shares the same background, that is, the same education level/ethnic background/family situation/sports club/religion, you name it, as their own.

Our Turkish astronomer with his very Turkish costume would have really stood out at the 1909 International Convention...
His predominantly European audience would have seen him as belonging to an 'outgroup'. He would not have been one of theirs, and therefore, whatever he had to say on the highly academic (and presumably European!) topic of astronomy would have been taken lightly or discredited.

It actually depends on the topic of discussion as to whether belonging to an 'outgroup' makes you persuasive or not. If you came from a Middle Eastern background, wore traditional clothing and talked at length to a Western Human Rights group about your experience with gender descrimination in your home country, everyone would listen to you wide-eyed and gobble up everything you said (probably because they want to...See Attitudes and Prejudices later in this post). Likewise, if you published a book on your experience (whether fabricated or not), it would sell rather well.

Having said all that, based on those studies, I can't help but smile when I reflect on my ideal audience. In order to be perceived as highly persuasive or competent, my audience would need to be of mixed background, preferably with some Asian and European blood, they would need to have had a university education and to sound Australian. Because I look highly Asian, an Asian audience would also do the trick.
In fact, whenever I have felt disrespected, it usually arose from not being listened to (or being judged/dismissed etc..) by a White person.

I am certain they were not racist, in fact they were probaby unaware of their own prejudices and their tendency to listen to and favor speakers from their own group. Am I guilty of the same tendencies? Of course.

Then there is the tendency to give authority to those in your ingroup. I often laugh (sarcastically of course) when I realise that, in Australia, the workplace hierarchy practically mirrors European colonial power relations. Little has changed.


Attitudes and Prejudices

Audiences have baggage.
Audiences develop a perception of their speaker that actually has little to do with the speaker but more to do with their own past experiences and beliefs.

For example, some audiences have been raised to pay attention to what a woman is saying, only if she is above 35 and sounds strict like a teacher. Audiences have been raised to not interrupt a man but talk all over a woman when she speaks. Audiences have been taught that a deep voice is to be listened to but a high pitch voice is a sign of a weak argument. Audiences can interpret your silences as 'not knowing', even when in reality, you might have a solid understanding but keep much to yourself. I could go on...

Audiences just naturally assume. They assume from the moment you walk in the room. In 1909 they saw our Turkish man in his Turkish costume and they already knew they would dismiss him before he even uttered a word.

Let me repeat that (because repetition helps an argument too!): audiences are people with baggage. They will judge you, invent things about you, project their own weaknesses onto you, attribute your actions to intentions you never had, attribute your actions to your ethnic background or religion, in short, audiences are people. Everyone does it.

The Art of Persuading - And Why I Don't Care

When I reached 35, about five years ago, I developed a non-caring attitude about whether or not I was perceived as persuasive.  My attitude was directly related to my understanding of the nature of audiences.

I learned that if I could not persuade an audience, it was simply because it was not meant to be.

These days, I try, I am myself and I deliver my message. If this does not work, then I move on. Because people will believe whatever the hell they want.

Let me repeat that. If a person thinks like you, is really moved by your message, by who you are, by what you stand for and shares a natural understanding with you, then you do not even have to try persuading them. The two of you will click.

If you are attempting to persuade, you are already lying.

I think the so-called art of persuasion is the realm of the conman. The conman is the political machine who can tap into the baggage of their audiences and connect with them, cleverly crafting their image/argument so that no baggage stands in their way.

And that's not what The Little Prince is about.

Making Faces

As a person with an INFJ personality profile, I have always been a sensitive creature.

I remember in Dakar, when I was six, my sister's friend, Sandra Ghaffari, had invited us both to her birthday party. We played many games.  And during one such game, the birthday girl gave each participant a folded piece of paper where she had written down her 'secret' thoughts about that person.

When it came to my turn to receive a note, I unfolded it in anticipation, only to be mortified. While my sister had the honor of reading, "You are my best friend", or something of that nature, I received the incredibly cruel, "You are a rotten banana".

Don't laugh. In French, it translates to, "Banane pourrie!"

My poor little ego was battered. All along, I had thought that Sandra had invited me to her birthday party because she liked me. How wrong I was! It seemed, that in her eyes, I had only tagged along as the annoying little sister. I remember leaving the circle, deeply hurt, and crying in my corner. I later confided in my sister that Sandra had been mean to me.

From then on, Sandra Ghaffari became my number one enemy. Oh, yes! As an INFJ, I certainly have a blacklist. (It did not help that I was possessive of my sister - you probably guessed that.)

And yes, Sandra Ghaffari was the girl's real name. Oops. You know what they say about writers? Don't piss them off. Ha!

But seriously, there have been moments in my life where rejection, or the perception of being rejected, has been incredibly painful. I think I wrote of it in a couple of blog posts, including this one, and of course, this one.

Tying into rejection, is the problem of perception. And ultimately, of image.

Like many women, image has been a problem for me.  From the time I wore braces for almost three years, to the long period where I developed anorexia, image has baffled and tormented me with the question of, 

How to be physically who I am inside? 

I know, now, that to be physically who-you-are-inside is impossible. It doesn't matter what you try, you will fail.

Image, I now see as either hard work, supreme art, physical effort, or incidental - but never a true representative of a person. At this point in my life, I play with artifice, because I enjoy it and because I am fortunate to be able to afford it. I love clothes, costume and beauty in all forms, just as I am fully conscious of their limits. For example, I would much rather read someone's words to learn of who they are, than look at them. In the same manner, I would rather someone read me to get to know who I am.

This is something that most people do not understand - that what I write, is very much closer to who I am than the visible ever will be. The visible is completely fabricated.

I learnt something about myself recently. I was not even reading a self-help book or anything too deep. I learnt of it through one of those model contest shows.

No kidding.

I forgot the name of the show. I'm not loyal to television in general and I tend to skim lightly through shows at random. Anyway, one of the modeling contestants was receiving feedback about her photo shoot. The judge observed her photos for a moment, and then he asked if she had at all been bullied or put down often during her childhood. She confirmed that she had. At this, the judge, who also happened to be a male model, explained that he could read this through the attitude she carried with her in each photo. In other words, her attitude was a defense reaction to the intruding eye of the camera.

His words really resonated with me. I began to understand, why, it is in fact rare, for me to even smile naturally in a photo shoot. There is always the default attitude, that tendency to hide behind a mask and to play the role of someone else - someone stronger, elusive or aloof - and to not let anyone in. I think this attitude is also part of my very private (and sensitive) personality.

Many would agree that a camera is a contraption that has the potential of making its subject feel vulnerable. It is why so many people run away from the camera. They hate the camera's intrusion and its false 'revelation'. They understand, deep inside, that one's image is limiting and that cameras can enforce a narrative that one might not want. And so, when the lens is on you, judging you, which really, is akin to any social situation where one might end up feeling small or inadequate, it carries with it an element of choice - do you allow it to make you feel vulnerable, or do you remain out of reach so that nothing can harm you. I think that is essentially the difference between a direct, warm smile to the camera and an attitude.

As an author who understands the need to market and to have an online presence, together with photos, the prospect of vulnerability and criticism becomes very real. At the same time, there comes the opportunity to create a narrative or to play with artful imagery - a wonderful process that mirrors writing.

To slip in and out of a role and create a character - I love that thrill.

What I Learned From Publishing My First Novel

Readers are your best friends 

Yes, they are. Think about it, you are an unknown writer. It takes either love, a keen interest in the author, a commitment to helping other authors, openness, or else a genuine attraction to a book's premise and setting to dare read a novel from an unknown writer.

In the last eighteen months, I have been blessed with friends, some strangers, who have supported me in this, the beginning of a long journey, by simply daring to pick up my novel and enter an unknown world.

The number one factor in influencing book purchases is what psychologists call normative influence: a recommendation by a friend. This is why, having someone read your novel and enjoy it can be a catalyst for a chain reaction of events that defeats any form of marketing. Its value is priceless. Without the support of a massive marketing campaign to increase the author's visibility, or impress value in a potential audience's mind, the only real promotion a new author is left with is the reader.

So thank you to my readers. You rock!

Your cover needs to attract the right audience

Would-be readers who discover they chose the wrong book based on personal taste can be your worse enemy. I have received reviews that made me wonder, "well, what did you expect?" and again, some have made me think, "isn't it obvious that it would be THAT kind of book?"

Well no. Perhaps it was not that obvious.

As a self-published author, I take on the responsibility to properly promote the book so as to target the right audience.

How do you ensure you are attracting the correct audience?

The Ming Storytellers has an undoubtedly beautiful cover. Last November, it won a eBook cover design award and designer, Caryn Gillespie, will soon produce the cover for my second novel.
According to studies, aside from a friend recommendation, the cover is one of the most important factors in luring a reader to purchase a book.

So what went wrong?

I think the nature of The Ming Storytellers, with its multiple character points of view, its multiple narrative threads and its balanced set of male and female characters, would definitely seem 'boring' or 'too long' or 'confusing' for those readers who were inticed by the splendid Chinese female on the cover, and who imagined the novel might be set exclusively in the feminine sphere with a single point of view.

It could be argued- and I am doing so intuitively without any quantitative evidence- that the plurality of The Ming Storytellers may have been more strongly conveyed if the focus of the cover had not been on just one character. Truer still,  the 'epic' nature of the novel (to repeat the term used by many readers) would have been emphasized if the cover emulated the imagery in traditional epic novel covers...which ultimately are sort of boring anyway. Or less sexy!

I would not change this cover for the world. But I think in this case, the blurb of the book may require rethinking. It might be rewritten to better convey the important facets of this novel to a reader who may otherwise be misled by the imagery.  

Giving away your book for free is not always a good idea

I think giving away your book for free has advantages, the main one being to increase an author's visibility over a couple of days. However the volume of downloads does not convert as expected.

Sure, you'll generate thousands of downloads in a few days, but how many of those ebook hoarders are genuinely interested in immersing themselves in a 600-page novel set in the Ming Dynasty? With eunuch male characters? And with foreign names? Very few.

They will like the cover (and who doesn't), add the ebook to their shelves, increment the number of books in their social reading platform and, ta da - end of story.  I've had a sinking feeling whenever I have seen my book tagged in Goodreads as "freebie" or "free ebook". It likens my 'omnibus' (as described by a wonderful reader from India) to the worse junk that exists in the digital self-publishing world.

At worse, the impulsive hoarder's tastes will turn out to be horribly mismatched to your book.
And they will leave a review.
Just because they can.

And let's not mention the trolls - individuals who have produced nothing literary in their entire lives and whose sole sense of worth is derived from destroying an author's reputation by happily downgrading the said author's book ratings - at No cost! Do not indulge them.

Trolls exist. I thought they did not, but they do. I was naive.


Negative reviewers are poor psychologists

In life, you can choose to be happy and you will be... Or, you can choose to be miserable and that too, will be your lot. Your preconceived attitude will cloud your perceptions of others, your interpretations of events and, if that is not enough, it will horribly skew your sense of measures.

There are negative reviews that are genuine and humbling just as there are those that reveal deep seated issues in the reviewer. What remains perplexing about the latter is how they can feel so comfortable making certain judgments in public when the attitude behind their words is rendered so evident. I worry sometimes.

Nevertheless, considering the democratic nature of digital publishing's rating system, an author will always have to deal with the masses. And one does not need to be a psychologist or a historical novelist, to understand that the masses, often, are led by idiots.

If you publish to US audiences, don't be a freaking snob, use US English

I made the mistake of employing UK English for a full year with Amazon.com as my main distribution point, only to have a couple of reviewers rant about the spelling mistakes that were rampant. (This was simply not true.) Considering that the US is my primary market at the moment, I should have known better.

Living in Australia, where both spelling forms are known (or more or less known and accepted), I could not imagine how intolerant the majority of US readers are. The more educated would not complain but this was not the case for the majority.

In the end, I resolved the 'rampant spelling' problem. To be fair, I did identify 10 spelling errors that were genuine, but in a book of 600+ pages, I felt that the judgment made upon The Ming Storytellers as being 'obviously self-published' was grossly disproportional. My fellow indie authors will agree.

Again, reviewers are not the best psychologists. And they are not good at maths.

Your Best Reviewers are people who understand what you were setting out to do.

This encapsulates what I seek from reader feedback: to be understood. Not on the surface, not at the narrative level, but deeply and completely. When a reader has understood my meaning - not my words, but my intentions - I feel at home.

It gives such joy to strike a chord with a reader. It's like tapping into this collective essence that is humanity. When a reader shares their reaction and I deem it the 'correct' one based on what I sought out to do, there is this symbiosis, as though both our mirror neurons were activated in tandem.

Crazy analogy...
You must forgive the social psychologist in me. The writer in me would just say "fuck yeah".

For those moments, I am grateful.

I made mistakes

I take objective feedback seriously.

Some of this feedback related to the editing of The Ming Storytellers which might be slightly improved.
Yet further feedback related to the multiple voices within the narrative which jarred certain readers or rendered the novel more difficult to read for some. Then again, there were readers who enjoyed the novel's complexity and saw it as a challenge and a reward to complete.

All this, I take seriously.

According to the more objective feedback, The Ming Storytellers could have been slightly better edited...even though I spent a total of 6 years on it. It was not an easy task. Sure, I could do it again - revise the flow and complexity in certain passages, strip a couple of sentences, use alternative words... But I shall keep that lesson for the second novel which I can promise, as a self-improving author, will be of higher standard from an editing perspective. It will also be shorter.

As for plurality of voices- well, judging from George R.R. Martin's success, and his books' multiple points of view, I may not want to change my approach. I believe there are readers who enjoy multiple voices. I know I do. In fact it is what I most enjoyed in Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White. Perhaps I might best apply this feedback to attracting suitable audiences by injecting more thought into my future covers.

Self-doubt is here to stay

No matter how pompous or joyful my Tweets, no matter if I rave about a five-star review, no matter the thought that I'm now published, still, the self-doubt is here to stay.

My partner, who has been a writer for over twenty years, and is a respected screenwriter in Australia and abroad, has many a times advised me that self-doubt is the lot of writers. But not just all writers: those who care about growing and those who are not complacent about their art.

Based on this, I am grateful for self-doubt and the motivation that it imparts to me. I also know, through the enormous talent I see whenever I pick up a book by my favorite authors- some of who are my friends-, that I still have much to learn.

Historical Fiction Novels with Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Characters

Back in the 1990s, when I first read Alice's Walker's The Color Purple and later saw the highly moving film adaptation, I remember how it spoke to me emotionally on several levels. This African-American historical novel became my favorite for several years. I still love it. While the story contains several touching highlights, I remember that nothing was more significant for me than Celie and Shug's relationship. I completely identified with Celie and her adoration for the sultry blues singer. Celie's lack of self-esteem and her need for a hero, a female at that, one who could inspire and comfort her, all of it was immediately accessible. I don't think I found the same emotional depth in any other heterosexual romance on screen. To this day, this faithful portrayal of love between two women remains with me.

Before the turn of the century, I discovered other depictions of what we would today call GLBT relationships in fiction. The first that stood out were those portrayed by Anne Rice. I read them all, from The Vampire Lestat to The Vampire Armand. Anne Rice's vampires are immensely appealing. Their sexual conquests enviable. Lestat, Armand, even David Talbot who headed the Talamasca, all men with bisexual tendencies. Men with appetites. Exactly what one would expect from those who experience the supernatural realm on a daily basis.

I admired Anne Rice's characters but from a GLBT social perspective, they were not as groundbreaking. I think this is because supernatural characters, as per their definition, are more easily given liberties to enact out of the ordinary behaviors. Even readers who oppose certain behaviors in real life will wave these behaviors in a supernatural character. For me, the sexual orientation in Anne Rice's characters soon became relegated to the extraordinary and this was dangerous because it perpetuated the freakish aspect of GLBT sexualities. We see the same effect in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. A sexuality that led to the author's harsh imprisonment and his eventual death, is nevertheless permitted in his characterisation of the sinful Dorian because this one is, after all, an evil freak who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his youthful looks.

These depictions remain nevertheless highly entertaining and fascinating in their rich sensuality and in the taboo they explored at the time. 

I want to veer away from the freaks and the superhumans, no matter how attractive, and instead examine those ordinary GLBT characters. Characters who, because they do not feature explicitly in self-professed Gay and Lesbian literature and also because they are brought alive in recreated historical periods, serve to anchor GLBT relationships into social normalcy, both in the present and throughout history. 

I want to look at historical novels that accurately highlight behaviors that were always present in history, whether or not these were socially and culturally condoned at the time. These novels hint, provide glimpses or else matter-of-factly point to their historical characters' sexual orientation. They do not make a huge deal out if it, which would defeat the created 'sense of ordinariness'.

These books say something quite powerful about such relationships, "Love it or leave it, but you cannot change the past". The ordinariness and mere presence of GLBT sexuality within a historical setting, supported as it is by historical research, has the effect of rendering any modern "coming out" as absurd. That is not to say that modern GLBT expressions are not authentic, but rather, that they are late to the party, since their authenticity has already been grounded and verified for thousands of years throughout humanity's history. 

The historical setting of such books provides a comforting mirror image of the present, leaving one with the sentiment that humanity has well and truly "been there and done that". That is the true power of GLBT characters in works of historical fiction; its other power is to reverse years of social and cultural silencing which have normalised heterosexual relationships both in writing and in history.

A historical novelist who features a bisexual, gay or lesbian character is not playing with sensationalism; they also do more than reach out to a broader audience; perhaps they also fulfill their own desires and personal imaginings. But what is more significant, is that they are depicting the full gamut of human sexuality, and therefore, the full gamut of the human experience within history. And this is important, because one cannot purport to truly recreate a historical setting while shunning certain aspects of the human experience.

A few of these historical novels are listed here. If you can think of recent others, please let me know and I will add them. 

Bryn Hammond's Amgalant series:
13th century Gay Mongol character

Elisabeth Storr's The Wedding Shroud:

Bisexuality in the Etruscan world

Lisa J. Yarde's Sultana - Two Sisters:
Bisexuality in Moorish Spain 

Laura Rahme's The Ming Storytellers:

Sapphism and Transexuality in Ming China

John Caviglia's Arauco:

Homosexuality in native 16th Century Chile

Non-fiction readers may also be interested in, 

Anne Somerset's Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion

A biography of England's lesbian queen

The Myth of Medusa and Female-Assisted Patriarchy

Perseus and the Gorgon

by Laurent-Honore Marqueste (1903)

Our society is quick to denounce the horrifying decrees promulgated against Afghan women by the Taliban. We lament the unjust punishment of raped women in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. We cry in outrage when we hear of yet another victim of gang-rape in India. The beliefs and mechanisms that underpin the appalling treatment of women in many parts of the world are many and varied. They cannot be outlined here and that is not the purpose of this post.

This post is about patriarchy. Yet it is not your standard feminist post. Far from it. It is about denouncing the women who assist patriarchy.

How does a woman in India assist patriarchy? 
By privileging a boy's education. By telling her daughter through actions or words that she is worthless. By raising sons who feel entitled to better treatment than girls. By allowing a son to grow up believing that he is a little king, and that he deserves more than women, or worse, can do whatever he likes to a woman, including beating her to a pulp or savagely raping her with his male friends.

How does a woman in Africa assist patriarchy? 
By perpetuating the cruel practice of female circumcision. In parts of Africa, especially Somalia, the women are indoctrinated to believe that a daughter's worth for marriage and her chastity depends upon her being circumcised. It is the women who take an active, aggressive role in circumcising their daughters. It is women who tell their uncircumcised daughters or daughters-in-law that they are filthy and not fit to be a wife unless they have been brutally mutilated.

How does a woman in any part of the world, including the secular Western world, assist with patriarchy? 
By happily labeling another woman a 'slut' when it appears that this other woman naturally solicits male attention. It is often the case that such a label is born of envy or insecurity. Its true crime, is that it publicly invites the social scorn of their sister, while supporting the patriarchal belief that sexually desirable or sexually active women have no place in this world, and that only a man has rights over his pleasure and sexuality.

How does a woman in any work place or organisation assist patriarchy? 
By undermining her own female co-workers or potential female employees because she, without realising it, has long internalised social beliefs that certain skills are best acquired by the male gender. There is a doubt that exists within her about her own ability as a woman to master certain technical or other traditionally male-dominated skills, and it is this internal doubt that she projects upon her sisters such that she comes to undermine them even where they are perfectly capable.
How else?
By doing what many men do so well: that is, by assuming that her female co-workers could not have achieved what they have on merit; that if they have at all delivered, it must have come primarily through some male aid or worse, through the practice of some female guile to acquire the assistance of others while doing nothing herself.

These are all forms of female-assisted patriarchy and female-assisted sexist attitudes. They serve the outdated male beliefs that women are not as important, valuable, skilled and trustworthy as men. They reduce women to manipulative, unfit and beguiling monsters. They reduce women to the gorgon, Medusa.

Do you know the tale of Medusa?

Yes, you must remember the Greek tale of Medusa. She was this hideous female with snake-like streams for hair and one look upon her face was thought to petrify the onlooker such that he or she turned to stone. It was Perseus who, with the help of Athena, managed to kill Medusa.

But do you know the real tale of Medusa?

Before she became a gorgon, Medusa was a beautiful girl. Her beauty was such that even the goddess Athena envied it.

Athena soon found out something horrible. She discovered that the God Poseidon had raped Medusa. Being enamored of Poseidon herself, she saw it fit to punish Medusa. She turned her into a gorgon. Perhaps Athena thought that it was Medusa's fault if Poseidon had not been able to control his legendary urges and added Medusa to his long list of sexual conquests. But never mind that Poseidon was a serial rapist, Athena cast the entire blame on Medusa. In so doing, she no doubt appeased her fractured ego and took her revenge on a rival. And so it is when insecure women blame other women: they assist patriarchy.

Just like her Indian and Pakistani sisters who receive no justice for rape, Medusa was turned into a monster whose fate was to be reviled and avoided. Besides, it is impossible to engage a gorgon in conversation if one is soon cast to stone upon looking at her. Medusa was fated for social isolation. There is a word for that. Ostracism. Ostracism was her ultimate punishment. Even today, ostracism is a familiar mode of punishment for women who dare raise the ire of their jealous sisters. When the word is out against them, ostracised women are ignored, unfriended and perpetually removed from invitation lists.

Returning to our Greek legend... Our patriarchal hero, Perseus, had sworn to kill Medusa, this monster who inspired so much fear. And so it is when women are seen as nothing but monsters.

Not content with having turned Medusa into a gorgon, Athena also took it upon herself to assist Perseus in killing her.

There are many forms of female-assisted patriarchy but the one that really stood out for me was the story of Medusa. I always felt sorry for her and the unjust punishment meted out to her. When I look at the image in this post, the photo of Marqueste's sculpture, it represents for me all that is ugly and horrifying about the treatment of women at the hands of patriarchy.  I feel only pity for Medusa. Her misery could have been avoided if a certain ocean deity could have learnt better manners as a child and then, as an adult, kept his staff in place where it belonged (and I don't mean his trident). But without a doubt, her misery could have been avoided if Athena had not been so spiteful about Poseidon's slight and if she had not been so intent on casting the fault upon Medusa.

Can you think of other ways in which women assist patriarchy? I can think of many. In fact I can think of instances where women have turned out to be even more patriarchal than men.

How do we stop this? Because ultimately, whether we like it or not, some women are part of a vicious cycle that perpetuates patriarchal behaviors.

So what can we do? It is hard. Education is a big factor. We need to raise educated, strong women who are confident and not embarrassed with archaic modes of thought. At a social level, we educate them to shun traditional male-favouring attitudes. They must, in turn, not grow to favour their sons over their daughters. But most importantly, we give them confidence in themselves as individuals. We teach them the joy of being women, women who can overcome their insecurities. We give them a belief that life is filled with opportunities and we give them these opportunities whenever it is in our power and in their best interests.

We teach them to give, just as we expect them to be spiritually generous toward their own sisters.

We teach them to protect their own sisters, rather than fear them in the same way that generations of men have feared Medusa.

The Ming Storytellers - Sexuality

Issues of sexuality, sexual frustration and sexual obsession are an important undercurrent of the historical novel, The Ming Storytellers.

At the very core we have a world, the Forbidden City, where the only male population consists of an impotent emperor, Zhu Di, and his hundreds of castrates. Both ironically feel their inadequacies and both look to other worldly ambitions to compensate.

Zhu Di knows that he is unable to perform and in an attempt to dupe the world that he is still a virile man, continues to supplement his harem with yet more beauties from as far as Korea. Zhu Di persists in rubbing himself with aphrodisiac ointments and consulting with his physicians to improve his condition. Finding himself unable to perform, he assuages his masculinity on the military field.

Meanwhile the eunuchs who have sacrificed their manhood in order to accede to an imperial position understand that they will never have other means to succeed in their life than to serve their emperor. Maimed, conscious of their differences, plagued by lifelong health problems and sexually frustrated, they direct their ambitions, finding self-esteem and meaning in ascending the echelons of eunuchism, competing for roles and or often driving themselves to complex and illicit affairs with concubines.

For the hundreds of bored and sexually unfulfilled concubines in Zhu Di's harem, relief is found in forbidden literature. The women secretly indulge in the printed tales of the Ming storytellers, renown for their dubious virtue. They devour lascivious erotic vignettes, a Ming equivalent for pornography which arose during this period with the development of the printing industry.
In much the same way, Kareem, an envoy from Zanzibar is himself not foreign to the use of literature to compensate for the lack of spice in his bed. While his highly obsessed partner, Shahrzad, whiles her journey aboard the Ming fleet compiling theories about her idol, Admiral Zheng He, Kareem plunges ever deeply into the classic Persian volumes of One Thousand Tales (Arabian Nights).

Back in the Inner Palaces of the Middle Kingdom, bored and unfulfilled imperial concubines like the main protagonist, Min Li, become trapped in a form of fantasy, where they pine for unrequited forms of love. They become obsessed with eunuchs, perhaps men who believe themselves to be so inadequate that they shut themselves in a protective shell, convinced that they are undeserving of any adoration.

One such eunuch, Zhijian, will have to bear the frustration brought upon by castration all his life. He fills his time with the senseless completion of routine chores, without so much of a career goal, having abandoned all motive for life. The only escape from his torment is the obsession that he will develop for Min Li. His only joy following the castration that has deprived him of all he wanted from this life, is to seek every rumour concerning this one woman that he knows he can never have and who belongs to the emperor.
Zhijian will project his anima onto Min Li believing her to be pure and faultless, convinced that she is like him, a victim about to be slaughtered. Unable to function sexually, Zhijian elevates Min Li to muse status. He places her on a pedestal, relishing his platonic devotion as a welcome refuge because if he were to see her as a woman and desire her, he would ultimately need to face the 'villainy' of his physical condition.

But returning to the women of the palace, we find in the Ming Storytellers, another brand of sexual frustration one which perhaps would not be so problematic today, at least in many parts of the world.
It is the frustration of women who love other women and who are either forbidden to publicly meet due to social constraints or who entertain a secret passion for a loved one, a passion they hide, for fear of rejection.
The Ming dynasty is not foreign to sapphism. Palace women were known for having affairs with each other and wooden dildos have been found in the ruins of ancient Han palaces.

At the other extreme, there is another complex character who embodies a man completely at peace with castration yet who nevertheless suffers the frustration of remaining a man. Ji Feng is a eunuch, criminal at that. My conception of this character can be read in many ways. At the simplistic level he is a sexual criminal. At a more twisted level he is a man who has not 'come out' with his homosexuality. He experiences every woman as a threat, seeing them as creatures he can never compete with and whose form he can never hope to achieve.
Yet Ji Feng remains completely unaware of his own sexuality and of his seething jealously, nor is he conscious of his motivations for wanting to hurt women and see them under his power. Ji Feng's criminal impulse and his voyeurism, compound to produce a perverse individual capable of the worse crimes towards a gender that he cannot attain.

One salient undercurrent of The Ming Storytellers is the common theme of frustrated sexuality and soul-consuming sexual obsessions. It depicts a contrived world with extreme social taboos and physically maiming traditions, a world where eunuchism and forced concubinage combine to produce frustrated human needs that more or less contribute to the characters' journey.

10 Things You Didn't Know about The Ming Storytellers

1. It has eunuch characters - The main male character is a Muslim eunuch with a turbulent childhood. He existed. Yet in contrast to what is known of his role in Ming diplomacy and naval history, little has been written about his personal life or for that matter, about the many eunuchs who suffered and whose lives were violently transformed.

Today in many parts of the world, notably the West, there is much outrage over female genital manipulation in African and Middle Eastern communities, and how this scars women physically and psychologically. Conversely, the maiming of countless men over the course of history and even today is not dwelt upon with the same psychological and human rights perspective. It seems we have become disensitized about the practice of castration.

Whether through literature or film, we have come to accept that say, Romans, Turkish Sultans and Chinese emperors enslaved eunuchs, without dwelling on what being a eunuch meant for the victims. There is no memorial to acknowledge the lot of these men as eunuchs. There is little empathic study or recognition of what they endured, relative to our recognition of what slaves, in general, endured.

There are exceptions in literature. For example, I recently read the graphic novel, Habibi, and found it a truly respectful, eye-opening story featuring a eunuch as central character. It is a wonderful work of art and literature.

2. It contains torture scenes and a castration scene and offers the rudimentary outline on Chinese footbinding - history has its realities, however grim. I do not like to overlook the truth no matter how hard this truth. 

3. It presents a realistic portrayal of the life of Ming imperial concubines - What do bored women get up to, do you think? Yes, there is much plotting and scheming in secret, just as there are broken rules, bitchiness and much brooding. At the very least, readers can discover what it takes to be selected for the emperor's Royal Chamber and how to become a fashionable imperial courtesan. You can read more about this in my previous post, The Secret Life of Ming Concubines.

4. One of the great joys in writing historical fiction is that of giving a voice to those who have been overlooked or forgotten and offering a re-balance of perceptions through storytelling. And this is what The Ming Storytellers sets out to do. 

There is a magic realism element and as such, the novel slightly advances the cause of Shamanism. Long before the feudal Buddhist system headed by Tibetan priests, the old Tibet religions were rooted in shamanism. There was a deep reverence for animals and nature, and the belief in female seers or shamans. This root religion is explored and lends a magic realism aspect to the story.

The Ming Storytellers invites further contemplation into the history of Chinese minorities, notably those of Yunnan province, and the complex power systems that existed between China, Tibet and Mongolia in the 15th century.

5. It references Hazar Afsanah (One Thousand Nights, now known as 1001 Nights) - The Ming Dynasty is after all, the period where volumes of One Thousand Nights were being published in both Arabic and Persian editions.

6. It is set in a period where Arab and Chinese trade dominated the Indian Ocean, a time preceding the arrival of the Portuguese navigator, Alfonso d'Alburquerque, and his systematic takeover of Arab, Indian, South East Asian and East African trading ports. The Ming Storytellers is actually set just prior to a pivotal point in global trade history. The years following the novel's period mark a major historical shift from Chinese and Arab-dominated naval trade to European-dominated naval trade.
Today we find ourselves in a similar period of change but in the favor of China. From a political and economic perspective, the idea underpinning The Ming Storytellers is that empires, economies and military/trade supremacies rise and fall, and are also fraught by the same prejudices, fears, paranoia and delusions time and time again.

7. It is set in various places around the world including Nanjing, Lijiang in Yunnan, Beijing, Baidu in Sichuan, Deqin in Yunnan, Zanzibar in Tanzania, Calicut in Southern India, with general references to Mongolia, Tibet, Venice, Melacca, Oman, Mecca, Persia, Siam, Vietnam, Korea and of course, there are many passages set aboard the Ming fleet.
During the 15th century, these latter foreign places were all known by the Chinese. China was engaged in global trade with representatives from these parts of the world. It also received tributes from them as a form of allegiance and in exchange for naval protection and trade benefits. There was also a complex relationship between Tibet and China for both political and trade purposes.

8. The Ming Storytellers is transcultural - it embraces all religions and beliefs, and is divorced from all of them - There are references to Taoism, Buddhism, Tibetan Shamanism and Islam. There are references to several superstitions, together with the rejection of these.

Mazu, Celestial Goddess of the Seas guiding sailors

There are references to the Goddess Mazu - the Celestial Goddess of the sea for the Southern Chinese - together with references to the Nakhi ethnic group's frog worship.
The historical figure, Admiral Zheng He, on which the main male character is based, is believed by some historians to follow a harmonious integration between religions. The Ming Storytellers tries to be faithful to this notion and presents Zheng He as highly tolerant, with his attitude remaining quite fluid to integrate belief systems.

9. It deliberately features no White characters - In the story, when white foreigners are mentioned, they are commonly misjudged or treated as backward barbarians- this may be misconstrued to mean that Asian-centrism was the norm across all Ming Dynasty subjects (or that the novel endorses any existing Ming Dynasty racism). This is not the case. A couple of years ago, I wrote that this novel is an experiment in social psychology. It is a paradigm shift and nothing else. It is an exercise in human relations. It illustrates what often happens when an economically and politically powerful group of people, regardless of origin, looks upon the 'other'. 
I have always floated between East and West influences. It is my fluid background (Lebanese, Vietnamese and French) which allows me to setup this paradigm and remain...transcultural.

10. It contains both sexual references and sex scenes. Nothing coarse or pornographic, but I thought you might want to be aware of this. The Ming Storytellers features both homosexual and heterosexual sex scenes, including sex scenes between female and eunuch.

But in the words of my storyteller character, Jun: "Everything is important to the story."

A World of Minorities

It always irks me a little when I hear the people of several countries within the African continent being designated under the broad term of “Africans”.

Human language abounds with stereotypical definitions that serve our laziness and relative refusal to inquire about the unknown “other”. We use what social psychologists term as heuristics or mental shortcuts to make judgments, precisely because they allow us to quickly map and speak of our environments. They allow us to define our environment based on our experiences, often not in an empirical way. These do not spring from malicious intent. They are used to save time, mental effort and to serve our already shaped attitudes with minimum impact to our identity.

The more unknown and dissimilar a group of people are to us, the more likely we will apply to them what is called the outgroup homogeneity effect. This is defined as the tendency to perceive outgroup members (people who differ from us through their gender, their status or their social and cultural background) as more similar to one another than are ingroup members. In simpler terms, this is best described as the "they all look the same" mentality that we apply, even subconsciously, to outgroup members.

I am not sure if it is because I was born in Senegal but I am aware of the difference between a Serer, a Toucouleur, a Dyula or a Wolof person. Already my perception of Senegal has been refined by my experience and I would be ashamed to call a Senegalese an “African” no matter how positive my attributions are towards a said “African”.

I really think the terminology we use reflects the knowledge and respect we have for people in the world. Obviously I would not expect that everyone starts to refer to a Western France person as a Breton or that we all list the different Aboriginal tribes that exist in Australia.

But ultimately it is true that the correct naming and identification of certain groups brings us closer to understanding who they are.

Surprisingly, one of the most stereotyped groups of people in our modern age is the Chinese. With China's growing presence in the global sphere and the advent of more Chinese related subjects in the media, we read a lot about China these days. But when we think of China and the Chinese, the image that comes to mind will be directly influenced by our experiences however limited. If we have never been to China, the only information we will have is from the media.

I cannot answer the question of what it means to be Chinese in such a short post, let alone attempt to do justice to its broad scope.

But at the simplest level, it is worth painting this Chinese face a little more sharply than is currently done by the media.

If you are a Uyghur from Xinjiang province, you might be Muslim and your heritage might encompass more Turkic rather than Sino influences. If you are a Hakka from Fujian province, your ancestors would have never suffered the painful tradition of footbinding. If you are a Nakhi from Lijiang, your heritage includes the world’s only still-in-use pictographic writing system which looks akin to Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Nakhi Pictographs (center)

Chinese characters shown on each side

Source: blogger's own scroll, Lijiang

 If you are a Mosuo, a cousin of the Nakhi, your society is matrilineal and you are a descendant of Tibetan nomads. If you are a Manchu or Jurchen, your people once ruled China under the Qing dynasty and it was your imposed dress code which the colonial Europeans came to identify as “Chinese” even though this could not be further from the truth. If you are a Hue then your ancestors may come from Uzbekistan or you may yourself be mixed after many generations of intermarriage within China, whether this be a marriage with the ruling Mongols during the 13th century, or with people of the Han majority, or with other groups. But you are first and foremost a Hue because you follow Islamic teachings.

Finally if you are a Han then you are in the majority Chinese ethnic group and might possibly be the group most Westerners refer to when they lump the people of China into the one stereotype.

 As it stands, China has 55 recognised ethnic minorities. Many of them are in China's Yunnan province, the area bordering Vietnam, Burma, Laos and Tibet. The cultural heritage in Yunnan is outstanding. It is not a surprise that I chose to feature Yunnan and its people in my novel, The Ming Storytellers.

I was still a novice on China when I began writing but my approach was to recognise its cultural richness and depict a China where borders are elusive and where for centuries a flow of people has existed either from Uzbekistan, Mongolia, the Northern area known as Manchuria, Vietnam, Burma, Laos, Thailand or Tibet.

Of course, internally, the Chinese government aims to strengthen its country's nationalism and will encourage identification under one umbrella group: the Chinese. But this government also recognizes the 55 different ethnic groups because this dual identity is crucial to avoiding group conflict especially when there are so many different groups in one country. That is, some social psychologists have found that to avoid inter group conflict and to ensure individuals do not become dissatisfied, they must have a common group or goal to identify with as well as a means to differentiate themselves and derive cultural pride. Having said this, there is still much to be done (in many countries, not just China) to ensure that the voice of minorities is not extinguished in the favour of the majority.

One of the ways we can listen to and support minorities is by first knowing that they exist. Lumping a group of people into an umbrella term, for example, using the term, “Africans” is a sure way of forgetting that minorities exist.

No sooner does our vision of a country begin to encompass the richness and granularity of its people, the more these people cease to be unknown. They become familiar and understood. Our perception then no longer conjures fear, nor objectifies nor alienates this outgroup; suddenly these people acquire human qualities, each with their own culture, their own ways of seeing, their own story. I cannot stress the importance of this phenomenon. It is being able to see others as human which keeps us human.

On Failure and Social Support

There is a fear of failure in most individuals that belies one of the greatest truths in human social interactions. It is simply, that misery loves company and people are more likely to warm up to others who they think embody some weakness of some sort.

This is the product of social comparison, the tendency of individuals to compare themselves to others to assess their own standing and maintain self-esteem. It is easier and less painful for individuals' self-esteem to provide social support for those against whom they believe, they compare favourably.

To illustrate this phenomenon, I would like to give an example using two women. Everyone knows these two women. The scenario I am using is familiar and has been played in the social sphere countless of times.

Woman One has been overweight for most of her life. In terms of fitness, she is equated with a level of failure.
Woman Two is a splendid model of health, who for years, perhaps over twenty years, has followed a fitness and diet regimen without fail.

This is where it gets interesting.

In some circles, I must try not to generalise but that is the norm, the continually slim, healthy woman is dismissed as vain and 'not-knowing-what-it's-like' to struggle with weight issues. If she were to post a photo of herself on a social media platform, perhaps feeling proud of all her efforts in maintaining a toned figure and her persistence in taking care of herself after all these years, the general consensus is that she must 'really love herself'. It does not matter that following a regular exercise and health routine involves determination, discipline and self-sacrifice. The fact that she generally succeeds in this quest and has succeeded in this quest for years often bears negative consequences. Her 'success' is perceived as having come easily for her. There is also the perception that her 'overblown' efforts to maintain her appearance are only the result of her self-centredness and vanity.

Now let us examine what it means to be seen as 'once having failed'.
Please note, that personally, I think, failure only becomes failure if one is dissatisfied with one's state but chooses to do nothing to overcome this state. The example I give with Woman Two, that of being overweight, is only a problem if Woman Two is dissatisfied with her health and unhappy with her abundant curves. My measure of failure, here, is relative and depends on the individual's own values.

So returning to our example, let us assume that this overweight woman decides to lose weight and increase her fitness level because she wants to and over the next six months or maybe a year, she does indeed succeed at her enterprise.
Let us also assume that she begins to post photos of her efforts on a social media platform partly to motivate herself in her ongoing quest but also to celebrate her results so far.
Now comes the difference...

Her friends will naturally be encouraging of what is perceived as her commendable efforts in exercising regularly and eating well. They will perceive her long struggle. They will empathise with the feelings of dissatisfaction that have given rise to her desire to better herself. In short, she can expect more support than Woman One.

This is not just for women by the way,  I have witnessed abundant outpourings of support, praise and encouragement on Facebook when one man admitted to having lost 10kg in his last regimen. Kind words like "That is an amazing effort!" or "Well done on your determination" rarely shower down for those who are 'effortlessly' slim.

This is an example of how being perceived to have failed and to then succeed is often more socially welcomed than being perceived to have done nothing but succeed. Unless an individual is already a celebrity and has over 10 million fans, people have a need to know that the individual is not superhuman. Many people in fact need to see others as struggling with some sort of setback before they will allow them to shine.

Another example. When a new author comes onto the scene with a published book, recall how fascinated we are to know that they were once rejected by fifteen different publishers. All of a sudden, when we learn of this, there is a glow around their newly published manuscript. It's a manuscript seared with battlefield scars. It acquires an aura of injustice that has been finally overcome. Its potency somehow increases just as does our support for the author. It does not matter that most publishing stories are in fact riddled with rejections and the writer's journey is by its very nature likely to be fraught with setbacks and rejections. It is as though having identified that an author has been rejected before, we think they must 'know-what-it's-like' to struggle and we rally in favour of this underdog. Take the growing pains of J.K. Rowling in placing Harry Potter on the market and how this has been perceived. J.K. Rowling is seen as fully 'deserving' of her books' successes as a result.

Conversely, think to some of the feedback that writers like Elizabeth Kostova have received for being known to not-have-struggled in their publishing quest. Not content with being likened to the next Dan Brown, Kostova dared to attract a $2-million dollar advance for her fabulous debut novel, The Historian. If this was not enough, Sony was known to have immediately signed up for the movie rights. Here is a brief example of the against-the-grain responses (with the star rating in brackets) that have been made of The Historian:

"I honestly don’t understand the high reviews that had been given to this book" (1/5)

"This proved to be a big disappointment. It's been a huge bestseller, & reviews always mention the huge advance it got & often say it's brilliantly structured. But I found everything about it implausible..." (1/5)

"I found The Historian to be rich and luxurious - kind of like a mink coat, unfortunately the pacing and unrelenting narrative make it about as useful as a mink coat in Florida. Still, I wouldn’t mind reading the next novel Ms. Kostova writes, maybe a biography of one of the historical characters in this book because she has a wonderful ability to bring her characters to life. My only hope is that Ms. Kostova spent her two million dollar advance wisely, hopefully not on a mink coat." (2/5) - Ha!

"This is definitive proof that Dracula is NOT still alive/undead because if he was, he'd've killed this author. And then her editor." (1/5) - And they say only indies have editing problems. :)

"Considering the fact that the author had a 2 Milion Dollar advance to write this book over 10 years, it was a very bad read. I kept hoping the story would unfold, but no." (1/5)

Negative reviewers of this instant-success novel tended to make relative judgments based on the publicity that the book and its author had garnered. For example, they alluded to the critical acclaim and hefty advance and balked at how misled everyone else who raved about it was.

It would be interesting to discover if the lowest ratings given for The Historian would have been statistically higher, if Kostova's book and her generous debut novelist advance had not received so much publicity.

Indeed, people are relatively more supportive of those who struggle with some perceived failure and who eventually overcome this to 'succeed'. It is as though they are deemed to 'have suffered long enough' to be allowed to succeed. There is a sense that due to all their sufferings they now deserve their silver medal. As a result, it becomes perfectly alright to praise them and shower them with support since we have now established that they have been to hell and have suffered 'just like the rest of us'.

Human nature is indeed fascinating.

Beautiful actresses who uglify themselves onscreen deserve an Oscar

So in summary we can formulate the above discussion into two equations:

1. Effort + Success => Low Level Social Support or in extreme cases, No support

2. Perceived Failure/Struggle + Effort + Success => High Level of Social Support

What to take home from this?

Ultimately the social support one will obtain from others is related to the ability to market one's failures and let others know that one has flaws. Failure is not such a bad thing after all.

In fact many women do bond by speaking about the difficulties in one or more aspects of their lives. Woe to the woman who has everything going for her and is perceived as a model of perfection.

In some cases, people make a point of revealing their problems because they know perfectly well that this will arouse sympathy and can be used to rally others to their cause. It is a form of social manipulation.
Based on this, is it socially manipulative to advertise your failures?

I have no answer. With anything, it depends on the individual and the situation. In fact, never believe any advice that is too deterministic in nature: human psychology is riddled with 'it depends'. Don't even believe what I've written here. I should know better. I should know that successful people are praised every five minutes and live a joyful life due to all those who bask in their glory and hope to gain favours from them. I should also know that people who lose weight after years of struggle are met with apathy and jealous silences and that since they've dared to come out of their box and reinvent themselves they can expect nothing except resentment... Yeah, you see? It depends!

Fascinating, those humans...

But returning to the topic... While I would not go out of my way to hide my failures, I personally would not follow the conscious, 'everyone-look-at-how-much-I'm-struggling' approach.

I like to be perceived as superhuman you see...Why not!  And by the same token, the prospect of seeing my friends kick ass at whatever they do, can only bring a smile to my face.